


These foolish things (remind me of you)

by thelastfig



Series: The shadows I live with are numberless [1]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark, F/M, Female!Nix, Genderswap, I'm Going to Hell, Implied/Referenced Abortion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 12:07:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9895799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelastfig/pseuds/thelastfig
Summary: In 1944 Louisa Nixon is stationed in Europe working for the Office of Strategic Services and walks the line between dreams and real life.





	

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: This isn't sugarcoated. I had a dark thought, and instead of pretending like it didn't exist, I ran with it. This fic references illegal abortion as it takes place in the 1940s; please do not read if that makes you uncomfortable.

In her perfect world, it goes like this: The Allied forces take Berlin by Christmas, Hitler is killed, and all the boys are home before the new year rolls around. Instead of sleeping in an assigned room on scratchy military bedding, Louisa imagines herself enveloped in the highest thread count sheets money can afford with a goose down comforter. A roaring fireplace crackles in the background; the smooth sounds of Billie Holiday drift in the room over the radio. A never-empty bottle of whiskey is always within reach, and it’s never too early to start drinking. No, in Louisa’s perfect world the rouge on her cheeks comes in liquid form, and days don’t start before the sun rises.

 

The world isn’t perfect. Louisa sleeps in an attic whose walls are made of drafts and crumbling brick rattled by too many Luftwaffe bombs. There are never enough of those scratchy sheets to wrap around her and she’s taken to hiding the one good blanket she has under the floorboards after the last one was stolen. The one saving grace is a good bottle of Vat isn’t too hard to find, but at the rate the war is going who knows how much longer she’ll even have that.

 

The bottle is in her hand now, the glass mouth on her lips, but she doesn’t drink. Inhaling the earthy, peat-filled scent she wishes she could drink, but her shift starts in the next hour; she needs her mind sharp if the boys are going to get into Berlin any time soon. Putting the bottle down, she absentmindedly scratches her stomach while staring at her empty, unmade bed and wanting to go back to sleep.

 

Louisa doesn’t go back to sleep. Louisa goes to work to break codes for the Office of Strategic Services where she is sleep-deprived, hungover, and spends part of the day wishing she hadn’t signed up to serve her country and the other half dreading what the evening will bring. At the end of the day the other girls go out, but Louisa doesn’t have time for that. She has an appointment she cannot miss.

 

In her dreams it goes like this: Louisa stumbles back to her apartment in the city (New York she imagines at first, but then decides on Chicago) after a night of dancing with her friends. Her living room has a magnificent view of the lake, but at night it appears as a dark void and she avoids it in favor of the man in front of the fireplace. Dick doesn’t go out dancing or drinking with her and the group of socialites she calls friends to their faces but less than pleasant things behind their backs. No, Dick is practically a teetotaler who will occasionally go out for dinner or a dance hall, but finds his happiness in trips into the country or reading something in front of their fireplace. No one understands how or why an honorable and courageous man like Dick Winters ends up with bathed-in-booze-and-scandal Louisa Nixon but he is devoted to her, and he does not go to bed until she is safely home.

 

In dreams he doesn’t have the dark circles under his eyes or the weight of the world on his shoulders. Dick rises from his chair effortlessly and helps her remove her coat and hangs it up before she can throw it on the couch. Louisa collapses onto the chaise, complaining about how her feet hurt from her heels and the hours spent swinging to whatever big band orchestra is in town. He takes off her shoes for her, getting up to return them to the empty spot in her closet, before coming back and sweeping her up in his arms. Louisa shrieks, throwing her arms around his shoulders so she doesn’t fall, and he laughs into the crook of her neck, breath warm against her skin.

 

Still tipsy, Louisa will laugh and trip a bit when he sets her down on her feet to help her with her dress, soaked with sweat, perfume, and whatever drinks have been spilled by her or her companions. Her hair, dark and curled, has come undone from where it was pinned up and tumbles around her shoulders. Louisa is impertinent enough to not wear stockings of any type when she leaves the house for a night on the town, and when she collapses back on the bed in nothing but a lace-trimmed corselet, she reaches for the fastenings with her bottom lip caught between her teeth and her eyes trained on Dick. The dress will pool on the ground from where it slips from his hands as he reaches to cover hers; a grip strong from the war covers her smaller, soft hands with a tenderness she’s not sure she deserves.

 

“Lou,” he’ll whisper against her lips as he nips at them, feigning disappointment at the late hour and state of her return, but she knows better.

 

The best of these rare dreams has Dick pulling her corselet off and kissing her exposed skin, occasionally biting down where he knows she is ticklish just to hear her giggle and try to pull away from where he has pinned her arms down. He leaves small marks in places no one will ever see like the smooth skin of her hip or on the soft parts of her inner thighs; Louisa leaves marks in places everyone can see to warn them off, to let them know this one, the best one, belongs to her.

 

Louisa remembers the way Dick’s body fits against hers, his broad lines and tight muscles, like an ever-present ghost. His voice, words so sweet as he whispers into her ear and against her neck, sounds controlled if you didn’t know what it sounds like when he is falling apart. Louisa keeps these words in a book in a library in her memory. The most read page of the book is one where Dick is falling asleep, love tumbling from his lips as he pulls her against him, the one where they live happily ever after.

 

It’s 1944 and life isn’t a dream.

 

In real life, it goes like this: Louisa Nixon is brighter than a troubled, wealthy woman should be and ends up working in the Office of Strategic Services, attached to the Airborne once they are in England. She meets a charming lieutenant who she is able to coax out of his stoic shell, and as her timing has never been good she falls in love with him. Her work falters and she is sent to work in a different office as he is sent to Normandy. Somehow, the lieutenant survives and finds her when he returns. They are not a rushed wartime marriage like many around them; Dick is cautious and she is foolish enough in love to do whatever it takes to keep him around.

 

Foolish enough to not realize she misses her monthlies in September because she is too busy sneaking to Aldbourne to visit Dick or going out with him when he comes to London on his rare leave days. Foolish enough she explains October away with stress and anxiety about him being at the front despite his frequent letters reassuring her he is fine.

 

Louisa stands in front of an unmarked door, a card in her hand. She is not so foolish as to not realize being pregnant and unmarried will produce questions she is not willing to divulge answers to. She knows what she is doing is dangerous, possibly fatal, and nowhere close to legal, but the risks outweigh the consequences this could have down the road. Louisa is not willing to ruin herself, and what’s more, she is not willing to risk Dick’s reputation at all, even if it’s only a rumor.

 

If there is anything good about working in the OSS, it’s that information is easy to find if you know the right people and are willing to pay.

 

There is a brief moment, when she thinks of Dick and knows he would dissuade her if he knew, but he is not here and he will never know. Louisa does not want the promise of rings and marriage because she is an obligation. Louisa does not want a child; Louisa wants this war to be over and a stiff drink as soon as she can have one. When it comes down to it, Louisa is selfish and she is okay with that-- she knows this, she admits this, and everyone has faults. There is an ugly voice in the back of her mind calling her a murderer and an even darker voice telling her Dick isn’t coming back.

 

In the end it goes like this: Louisa leans back into chair used for the procedure as the sedative takes effect, closes her eyes, and dreams.   


End file.
